Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today and over the weekend
Hungary holds an anti-refugee referendum. Sunday’s plebescite asks whether the EU should be able to mandate the obligatory resettlement of refugees among EU member states. Prime minister Viktor Orban has spent millions on a “no” campaign, and, after months of his stoking anti-refugee sentiment, the vote is expected to go his way.
The UK releases key data. The country’s Office for National Statistics will publish reports showing how the Brexit referendum impacted the services sector—the largest slice of the UK economy. The results should signal whether the UK is heading for recession before the end of the year, which is looking less likely.
The Rosetta spacecraft’s final voyage. The end of its 12-year mission comes via a collision with Comet 67P near Jupiter at around 7am ET today, giving European Space Agency scientists “emotional closure.”
While you were sleeping
World leaders attended the funeral of Shimon Peres in Jerusalem. A long list of dignitaries paid their respects to the former Israeli president and prime minister, including president Barack Obama and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas signed the Oslo peace accords with Peres in 1993, but hasn’t visited Israel since 2010—he was criticized by Hamas for attending the funeral.
Things went from bad to worse at Deutsche Bank. The troubled lender’s shares dropped by 8% in early Friday trading, after nervous hedge funds began moving big money out (paywall) of the bank on Thursday, amid growing concerns about the bank’s stability. The bank, which was slapped with a $14 billion fine by the US Department of Justice last week, admitted it was suffering from a “perception issue.”
H&M blamed the weather. The Swedish fast-fashion chain said a warm September hurt sales. Revenue grew by a meagre 1% in September and pretax profit fell to $730 million in the three months through August. The clothing industry is in crisis—people, especially in the UK, are opting to spend their dosh on food (paywall) and travel rather than clothes—which they know will be heavily discounted anyway.
Airbus finally decided to become one company. The company announced it will end the complex structure that arose when aerospace companies from France, Germany, and Spain came together in 2000, when it even had two leaders. CEO Tom Enders hopes the streamlining will cut costs and make things more efficient. Airbus shares have declined 15% this year, valuing the company at $46 billion.
Rodrigo Duterte likened himself to Hitler. The Philippine president drew a comparison between how Hitler had “massacred three million Jews” and said there were three million drug addicts and he’d be happy to “slaughter them.” The international community has widely condemned Duterte’s crackdown on drug dealers, which has led to some 3,000 deaths since he took office earlier this year.
Quartz obsession interlude
Akshat Rathi on the global health threat of illegally traded wild animal meat. ”In 2015, the World Health Organization published a list of the top emerging diseases that are ‘likely to cause severe outbreaks in the near future.’ It’s no coincidence that all the diseases on the list are zoonotic diseases caused by RNA viruses, which turn animals—mostly wild ones—into reservoirs to hide in.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Pop culture demeans women by silencing them. Women in the public eye are constantly punished for raising their voices against the status quo.
Expensive meal services are bad for public health. They’re an unsustainable substitute for a society that understands healthy, environmentally conscious food.
The “private” vs. “public” school debate misses the point. A pragmatic approach to education reform would mean embracing a combination of the two school models.
Surprising discoveries
Meerkats are pretty bloodthirsty. A study of 1,000 mammals showed them to be most likely to kill their own kind.
A lack of clean air can impact your productivity. When air pollution rises, office workers automatically slow down.
Clinical trials in China cannot be trusted… A recent government investigation found that 80% of them are fabricated.
…and neither can official Chinese oil-reserve estimates. New satellite data shows that possible oil reserves are much greater than official numbers.
Wearing body cameras can drastically change cop behavior. Police forces in the US and UK that adopted them saw a 98% drop in complaints the following year.
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